The little book is leather bound, a "Standard No. 55 Diary" of its day. At the front are printed pages containing a wealth of information, including legal holidays by state, interest tables, the value of gold or silver by country, and the required number of pounds per bushel of grain. A calendar tells me that they celebrated New Year's Day on a Monday in 1894.
The little book would be interesting even if it were blank, but the writing in it tugs at my heart. The diarist was named Alma J. Gage, from what I can gather. The slim book offers three days per page with nine lines available per day. Alma seldom filled all the lines, but she never missed recording a day in the entire year. The top of every section invites the writer to record "Ther." and "Wea.," which I assume to mean Thermometer and Weather.
Alma begins so many entries with the word "Pleasant," that I assumed she lived in a temperate climate, but soon came to realize that her home was a farm in Massachusetts. Some of her days record drawing ice and storing it under the hen house, but she still records those days as pleasant. That fact tells me more about Alma and her outlook on life than about the weather in Massachusetts in 1894.
January 1, 1894, was pleasant, and "Jasper got a load of pine wood." That's it. January 2 was pleasant and the only other word recorded is "washing." On January 4, "Lady Emma calved a heifer saved it." Such began Alma and Jasper's New Year 116 years ago. The days unfold with lists of chores (half-ton loads of sawdust and meal, sawing wood, husking corn) and an occasional business transaction (Orrin Chase - $1.00 or Mrs. Connor - 3 doz. eggs). Alma seemed to be the one to buy and sell horses.
One day Jasper took the train to Manchester and back. On March 18 they let the calves outside for the first time. The little diary records a staggering amount of work as the family grew, stored, and sold the products that their farm produced. The fall days are filled with hay and apples. Daughter Annie takes elocution lessons. They go to church and "Sabbath school" from time to time.
Only occasionally does Alma record one of them not feeling well, and though she does record some deaths, she doesn't let us know the relationship or how she felt about it. The little book is devoid of emotion.
Anais Nin, famous diarist, said that we write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect. I have often said about my own journaling that if I don't record a day, it feels like it didn't happen. I don't let myself think much about who, if anyone, might read my journals one day. I doubt that Alma Gage imagined that someone would read her 1894 journal over a century later and marvel at the life she lived. Her life must have seemed quite ordinary to her. I wonder why she chose to record it.
Alma Gage's days have been tasted at least three times now. I find her simple pages delicious. They enable me to sample a life I couldn't quite imagine. Her simple entries and lists tell so much more than the stark words record. They remind me how choked my own diaries are with both emotion and analysis. My fat books are bloated with words when simple facts could do -- "went to work, rode my horse, did laundry, sold a diary."
If you visit the Ebay site you might not find Alma's diary there. I might just decide to keep it.
Susan Gladin is a freelance writer, United Methodist minister, and executive director of the Johnson Intern Program in Chapel Hill. She tends horses and a home business on the farm she shares with her husband. Their two grown daughters live nearby. You may e-mail her at sglad1210@aol.com or write c/o The Chapel Hill Herald, 2828 Pickett Road, Durham, NC 27705.
